“Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today?” asked Jimenez. “Um, no, I think that’s great. I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Florida, is a little safer tonight. The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die.”

“I’m kind of upset he didn’t finish the job — because these people are predators,” Roger Jimenez says

“Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today?” asked Jimenez. “Um, no, I think that’s great. I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Florida, is a little safer tonight. The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die. The tragedy is I’m kind of upset he didn’t finish the job, because these people are predators. They are abusers.”

“I wish the government would round them all up, put them up against a firing wall, put the firing squad in front of them and blow their brains out,” Jimenez said.”

I did not make this image. Source unknown

Words can heal or they can incite the disturbed to violence.

I don’t agree with the man in the first photo but I agree with his right to have and state his opinion.

A man who incites murder commits murder by using the disturbed minds of other people as weapons?

Hi Rob
The comments were surprising gives Society a look at the anger. It’s probably the same people who attend other protest. I thought people were more educated. I’m so ashamed by the comments made by churches. This is why semi-automated guns need a more intense background checks. I read earlier, it takes 7 hours to buy a gun like the one used in Orlando.
M

I think the shooting in Orlando has special resonance for survivors of abuse. Many of us were abused by people who used language as a weapon of control. For some of us, verbal abuse was daily…and often inflicted in front of people who chose to ignore the connection between the words and the bruises.

This makes my blood boil! And this guy is a fucking PASTOR? THAT’S why I don’t go to church. If I had been a part of that congregation, there would have been fur flying after he said that. These “people” are supposed to be preaching about love and brotherhood….not this trash.
As far as holding up signs….yes. It is a right but do they really think that a sign is going to change my opinions…make me think the way they do….suddenly condemn my beloved gay friends? Let them hold their signs and I’ll just keep ignoring them.
I don’t know why everybody doesn’t just keep their ignorant, prejudiced fucking mouths shut! I need to stop before I stroke out.

Freedom of speech is such a slippery slope. I would walk away from both scenarios, but I believe they have every right to stand (or sit) there with their signs and misguided opinions. Saying something as benign as “I hate the service here” in a restaurant could incite “the disturbed” to violence. Is hurting someone’s feelings or insulting them with your own vitriol really a condemnable offense? I don’t think so.

Because that’s his opinion. I have personally heard similar violent, vitriol spouted against Republicans, Texans, and Catholics. Do we lock up everyone who disagrees with us or wishes us dead? That is policing thought — exactly what Orwell warned against in 1949 when he published his masterpiece 1984.

I don’t propose that we lock people up for using their right to free speech even if what they say is hateful.

I propose that we stop living in a muddled soup of words stripped of meaning.

Orwell described a self imposed dystopia in which language is used to confuse the people and manipulate public opinion.

My question is this: what is the difference between free speech and hate speech? I think that recognizing that difference is crucial.

Not because we want to punish people but because it is important that we use the right words to describe and better understand the principles that shape our lives.

When members of the Ku Klux Klan go one the march we don’t say, Oh look, there’s a group of honorable Americans freely expressing their opinions. We say, Oh look, there’s a group of hateful white racists who think that their skin color entitles them to limit the lives of African-Americans.

Is there a difference between a free exchange of ideas and hate rhetoric designed to promote violence?

Most people see the difference more clearly if they are the targets.

We are by nature more alert to threats against our personal physical safety.

So here are more examples:

Is this Free Speech or Hate Speech? Please note: I don’t consider the liberal version of this ugly invitation to commit murder any less hateful.

Is this Free Speech or Hate Speech?

That is why Congressional Republicans took the lead in enacting the Defense of Marriage Act, affirming the right of States and the federal government not to recognize same-sex relationships licensed in other jurisdictions. The current Administration’s open defiance of this constitutional principle – in its handling of immigration cases, in federal personnel benefits, in allowing a same-sex marriage at a military base, and in refusing to defend DOMA in the courts – makes a mockery of the President’s inaugural oath. We commend the United States House of Representatives and State Attorneys General who have defended these laws when they have been attacked in the courts. We reaffirm our support for a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. We applaud the citizens of the majority of States which have enshrined in their constitutions the traditional concept of marriage, and we support the campaigns underway in several other States to do so. Te Republican Party Platform

Is this Free Speech or Hate Speech?

“We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors,” Conservative Political Action Conference, January 2002. Coulter later clarified what she meant; “when I said we should “execute” John Walker Lindh, I misspoke. What I meant to say was ‘We should burn John Walker Lindh alive and televise it on prime-time network TV’. My apologies for any misunderstanding that might have occurred”

Ann Coulter, 2002

Is this Free Speech or hate speech:

The central question that emerges—and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalog of the rights of American citizens, born Equal—is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes—the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race.

National Review believes that the South’s premises are correct. If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened. It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority. Sometimes it becomes impossible to assert the will of a minority, in which case it must give way; and the society will regress; sometimes the numerical minority cannot prevail except by violence: then it must determine whether the prevalence of its will is worth the terrible price of violence.
William F. Buckley, Jr. Editorial, National Review (1957-08-24).

I’ve never heard a leader in the United States say that Republicans, Texans, and Catholics should be lined up and executed.

But I’d love to see the quotes.

Thanks for your comments.

I think we Americans need to discuss ways to heal our country so that our families can live in safety.

We are so far down the slippery slope at this point that I fear we may have lost our chance to crawl back up.

Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. characterized prejudice against Catholics as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people.” Historian John Higham described anti-Catholicism as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history”.[Jenkins, Philip (April 1, 2003). The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice. Oxford University Press. p. 23]

As for myself, I can only speak from experience. I’ve been told that the only “good Republican is a dead Republican” and that I would make a great “late-term abortion.” I have also heard tell that “all Texans” should be shot with their own guns. As for more current leaders, Gov. Cuomo gave an on-air interview saying pro-lifers should be forcibly kicked out of his state. Not as inflammatory but nonetheless hateful.

Maybe it’s because I’m in the south, but anti-Catholic sentiment and hatred of Catholics is alive and well down here. The Klan and many Southern Baptist churches, especially, vehemently hate “papists” — the Klan just as much as they hate any non-white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant persons. We just don’t get as much air time as people of color and the LGBTI community. And have you not seen all the calls to “kill Trump” across Twitter and tumblr? Election years are sadly a time when both sides of the aisle blast inflammatory and hateful speech. I see it all the time.

That said, I absolutely agree that “Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person,” as outlined in Artlicle 3 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I myself fear that our greatest hope, our young people, have been so poisoned by the maligning rhetoric against “the other guys” by both major political parties in our country, that there is little room, desire, or possibility to work together in future.

Thank you for your reply and for giving me a context for understanding your point of view. I hear what you’re saying about Cuomo but to be honest, I would not want a movement of people using their right to free speech to torment my sister as she tried to enter an abortion clinic. It is this need to control how people live that I find consing. I am honestly saying that I don’t understand it. I do know this: I would walk my sister past those anti-abortionists and wish that they had the sense to understand how painful and private her decision is. But I would not shoot them…nor would I call for their executions.

My question regarding the difference between hate speech and free speech revolves around the question of whether we can learn to disagree without bringing out the worst in each other. You and I may both be southerners. I think most Americans have plenty in common regardless of political affiliation. I am certainly not your enemy…All I want is the freedom to live my life in peace and with a degree of civility.

Exactly, Mr. Goldstein. It will take massive civil discussion and cooperation and I hope that it’s a possibility for my own children and generations to come.

I tell my own children that most humans want the same things, they just disagree, sometimes radically, about how to make that happen, and to always remember everyone is the protagonist of their own story.

Thank you for sharing with me openly and kindly. As Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”

…It feels like a family that’s been fighting for so long that don’t even know what the fight was about anymore. All I know is that it hurts and innocent people are dying and I want it to stop. Thanks for visiting my blog and talking with me….:)

So ignorant and plain stupid. I hate the assumption that gay people are automatically paedophiles. Yes people have a right to opinions and free speech but when it is ill-informed and ignorant it is potentially very dangerous.

I haven’t heard the pedophile accusation in decades. I’ve lived with the same partner for almost 25 years in a monogamous relationship. The men who sexually abused me when I was a child were all married and straight identified. This man isn’t holding an opinion; he is inciting violence among people who have chosen to retreat to the evil of arrogant stupidity.

It isn’t justifiable. It never has been justifiable but it has its own ‘news channel’ radio stars, newspapers. An entire branch of the media tailors it’s ‘facts’ to support a violent and paranoid world view.